Sean Sasser

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Sean Sasser
activist
Spouse
Michael Kaplan
​
(m. 2013)​
PartnerPedro Zamora (1994)

Sean Franklin Sasser (October 25, 1968 – August 7, 2013) was an American educator, activist,

commitment ceremony in which the two exchanged vows, the first such ceremony for a same sex couple on television, and considered a landmark event in the medium.[1][2]

Early life

Sean Franklin Sasser was born on October 25, 1968, in Detroit, where he grew up. When he was six, his parents divorced, after which his father, an army sergeant, was mostly absent from his life,

college-preparatory magnet school.[4]

After high school, Sasser attended the

culinary school, as he had always been fond of cooking, and wanted to open his own restaurant.[4]

After finishing school, Sasser found jobs cooking in local Chicago restaurants, but was too fixated on the idea of dying from AIDS. Realizing that he "needed to figure out how to keep living", he moved to San Francisco, whose greater HIV awareness and diversity allowed him to find people he more easily related to – specifically, HIV-positive people closer to his own age – which raised his spirits. Sasser joined a youth HIV-positive movement that advocated attention for adolescents with the disease, and began speaking to groups about his own experience with HIV. He subsequently assisted a support group called Bay Area Positives, for young people of color. He appeared in a number of videos on behalf of the group, including "Not Me", which aired on PBS. He was photographed by Annie Leibovitz for a national AIDS awareness campaign.[4]

Relationship with Pedro Zamora and The Real World

Sasser attended the 1993 Lesbian and Gay March on

Washington, where he introduced himself to a fellow AIDS educator named Pedro Zamora. Although Sasser did not characterize his meeting Zamora as love at first sight (they were both involved with other people at the time), he was moved by Zamora's presence and conviction, recalling, "I was kind of like, 'Wow.' I had never run across someone who was as good at it as he was." Sasser encouraged Zamora to call him if Zamora ever visited San Francisco. Sasser subsequently learned that producers of The Real World were looking for an HIV-positive person to cast in the 1994 season in San Francisco season, where Sasser had been living for a couple of years, and eventually learned that the person cast was Zamora, whom Sasser felt was ideal for the role.[3][4][5]

Sasser had been living in San Francisco for a couple of years in the 1990s. When Zamora moved into The Real World San Francisco loft, he and Sasser began dating. Zamora asked the show's producers for permission to go out on the second date without cameras, so that he and Sasser could get to know one another in a more natural setting. After the producers allowed this, Sasser and Zamora fell in love, and their relationship became a focal point of the season.

commitment ceremony in the loft,[5][6] the first such ceremony for a same-sex couple in television history.[1]

After production on The Real World ceased in June 1994, Zamora visited his family in Miami before returning to San Francisco to live with Sasser. In August 1994, Zamora was diagnosed in New York City with progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML),[4][7] and was given three to four months to live.[7] On September 3, Zamora was flown to Mercy Hospital in Miami, where his family could be close to him.[8][9] His family was not accepting of Sasser, however,[4] and because the PML gradually took away Zamora's ability to speak,[4][10] Zamora was unable to explicitly communicate to them the importance of Sasser in his life. This led to confrontations between Sasser and the Zamoras, who told him that "Pedro did not need to have a lover anymore", and mostly excluded Sasser from Zamora during his final days.[4] Zamora died on November 11, 1994.[8][10][11] Sasser returned to San Francisco two days later.[4] Six months after Zamora's death, he resumed his speaking engagements for LGBT and HIV issues. In 1995, he spoke at the inaugural White House AIDS conference, and was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.[3] He moved to Atlanta in late 1995, in order to be with his boyfriend, and hoped to open a café.[4]

In 2008

Bunim-Murray Productions produced a film, Pedro, directed by Nick Oceano, dramatizing Zamora's life. In the film, Sasser is portrayed by DaJuan Johnson.[12] Sasser took issue with the film's portrayal of his relationship with Zamora's family. In the film, after Zamora is hospitalized in Miami, his father and brothers initially refuse to accept Sasser as Zamora's spouse, telling Sasser that their time in San Francisco is over, and attempt to keep them apart. After Zamora objects to this, Zamora's family is made to watch the video of their commitment ceremony, and accept Sasser as Zamora's husband.[13] Sasser, who regretted not having had an opportunity to spend more time with Zamora, says that this was not what occurred in reality, saying, "I have a lot of resentment toward dealing with his family's homophobia, as well as dealing with him dying... It's troublesome. If there had been some sort of support behind our commitment ceremony... I had a hard time dealing with his family. With Pedro's death and being allowed in the hospital... I don't know. Maybe it could have helped the family deal with my presence, you know?"[4]

After The Real World

Sasser was a pastry chef at Ritz-Carlton hotel properties and head pastry chef at The Nines, a luxury hotel in Portland, Oregon.[14][15] He moved to Washington, D.C. in 2012, where, as a pastry chef at a restaurant called RIS,[3] he was praised by the Washington Blade for his homemade ice cream and sorbets.[16] Sasser said of his work, "I want to serve desserts and pastries that people recognize and love to eat, but sometimes with an unexpected twist of surprise."[17]

In June 2013, Sasser married Michael Kaplan,[2][3][17][18] whom he had dated off and on since the 1990s, and with whom he had moved in six years prior.[1] While living in the District, Sasser served as a board member of the AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth and Families. He was active in youth and mentoring organizations, and he and Kaplan served as foster parents to a 4-year-old girl.[3]

Death and legacy

In July 2013, Sasser, who had been HIV-positive for 25 years, was also diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare cancer of the lungs.[1] Sasser had no known occupational exposure to asbestos, the primary cause of mesothelioma, though studies suggest that "chronic immunosuppression enhances susceptibility to mesothelioma."[19] He died at his home on August 7, 2013, at the age of 44.[1][2][3][17][18] In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated, and his ashes spread upon places he had been or wished to visit.[18] He is survived by his husband, Michael, mother, Patricia, and his sister, a dancer who lives in Detroit with her husband and daughter.[3][4]

Sasser's relationship with Zamora is credited with breaking a taboo against showing two men in a loving, stable relationship on television.

Real World: Miami cast member Dan Renzi, himself openly gay, stated, "Long before Ellen or Will & Grace showcased gay people on TV living mainstream lives, and before the magic of protease inhibitor 'cocktails' turned HIV into a manageable disease, Sasser gave a brave face to both issues and brought those taboo topics to educate millions of young Americans."[20][21]

The Sean Sasser Memorial Endowment Fund at AIDS United was established in September 2013 to mobilize support for programs that improve the health outcomes for gay men of color. Sasser's widower, Michael Kaplan, is the CEO of AIDS United.[22]

In June 2020, Sasser's name was added to the names of American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" on the

history.[26]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Duke, Alan; Carter, Chelsea, J. (August 8, 2013). "Sean Sasser, whose ceremony with partner on 'Real World' was TV first, dies". CNN. Retrieved January 8, 2024.
  2. ^ a b c Oldenburg, Ann (August 8, 2013). "'Real World' star Sean Sasser dies at 44". USA Today.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j McGonough, Megan (August 13, 2013). "Sean Sasser, part of one of TV's first gay romances, dies at 44". The Washington Post.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Jones, Anderson (June 1997). "Nowhere Else to Go". POZ.
  5. ^
    Pedro and Me: Friendship, Loss, and What I Learned
    . Henry Holt & Co. pp. 103-109.
  6. ^ "Video of Episode 19 of The Real World: San Francisco ("Love Rules") at". MTV.com. March 28, 2009. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
  7. ^ a b Winick (2000). pp. 119-137.
  8. ^ a b Israel, Betsy (November 28, 1994). "HIV, And Positive, Pedro Zamora of MTV's Real World Lived His Too-Brief Life To Its Limit" Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine. People. Vol. 42, No. 22
  9. ^ A Tribute to Pedro Zamora MTV. November 1994.
  10. ^ a b Winick (2000). pp. 141-161.
  11. The Miami Herald
    . p. 1E.
  12. ^ "Pedro: Cast and Crew". MTV. 2008. Archived from the original on December 29, 2008. Retrieved January 18, 2011.
  13. ^ Nick Oceano (Director); Dustin Lance Black, Paris Barclay (Writers) (2008). Pedro (Made for TV movie). United States: Bunim/Murray Productions/MTV.
  14. ^ Beck, Byron (October 22, 2008). "To the Nines: Adding it all up at Portland's most luxurious new hotel." Willamette Week.
  15. ^ DiGuglielmo, Joey (September 18, 2013). "Remembering Sean Sasser". Washington Blade.
  16. ^ Howard, Jonathan (May 16, 2013). "Sasser's sweet tooth". Washington Blade.
  17. ^ a b c Gosgrove Baylis, Sheila (August 8, 2013). "Sean Sasser, of The Real World, Dies at 44". People.
  18. ^ a b c "Sean Sasser, 'Real World' star, dies at 44". CBS News. August 8, 2013.
  19. S2CID 1669566
    .
  20. Today. NBC
    .
  21. ^ Belonsky, Andrew (August 8, 2013). "RIP Sean Sasser, Whose 'Real World' Made Change". Out.
  22. ^ "The Sean Sasser Endowment Fund" Archived 2014-03-02 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved April 6, 2014.
  23. ^ Glasses-Baker, Becca (June 27, 2019). "National LGBTQ Wall of Honor unveiled at Stonewall Inn". Metro. Archived from the original on June 28, 2019. Retrieved July 5, 2020.
  24. ^ Rawles, Timothy (June 19, 2019). "National LGBTQ Wall of Honor to be unveiled at historic Stonewall Inn". San Diego Gay and Lesbian News. Archived from the original on April 26, 2020. Retrieved July 5, 2020.
  25. ^ "New honorees named for Nat'l LGBTQ Wall of Honor at Stonewall Inn". Windy City Times. The National LGBTQ Wall of Honor. June 30, 2020. Archived from the original on July 1, 2020. Retrieved July 5, 2020.
  26. ^ Laird, Cynthia (February 27, 2019). "Groups seek names for Stonewall 50 honor wall". Bay Area Reporter. Archived from the original on May 10, 2020. Retrieved July 5, 2020.

External links

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